Blind Transport Format Detection for Transmission Link

1. A receiver-side apparatus for a transmission link, the transmission link using different transport formats for blocks of data, and using convolutional coding with additional error detection code information, for transmitting the blocks of data to the receiver side, the apparatus having: a decoder for performing a trellis decode and tracebacks of one of received coded blocks of data to produce decoded data candidates, an error detection element for carrying out one or more speculative error detections on the candidates, assuming part of each candidate is the additional error detection code information, and part is the block of data, and a format detector for determining a transport format based on a result of the speculative error detections, the apparatus being arranged to determine a probability of a candidate being valid, and prioritize carrying out the tracebacks or the one or more speculative error detections according to the probabilities.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 arranged to prioritize both the traceback and the one or more speculative error detections.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2 , the trellis decode being carried out over a maximum length of a block.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2 , the additional error detection code information being a CRC code.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2 , arranged to limit a number of tracebacks and error detections carried out, after which a false detection event is indicated.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2 , the probability being determined from a comparison of an all zero state metric with other metrics at a same point in the trellis.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2 , the data blocks having fixed transport channel start points.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2 , being UMTS 3GPP compliant equipment.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 or claim 2 wherein each of the decoder, error detection element and format detector comprise a processor executing software instructions to perform as recited.

10. A mobile terminal for use with a radio base station, having: the receiver-side apparatus as in claims 1 or 2 .

11. A base station having the receiver-side apparatus as claims 1 or 2 .

12. A method of receiving data over a transmission link, the transmission link using different transport formats for blocks of data, and using convolutional coding with additional error detection code information, for transmitting the blocks of data to the receiver side, the method having the steps of: performing a trellis decode and tracebacks of one of the received coded blocks, to produce decoded data candidates, carrying out one or more speculative error detections on the candidates, assuming part of each candidate is the additional error detection code information, and part is the block of data, and determining a transport format based on a result of the speculative error detections, determining a probability of a candidate being valid, and prioritizing the tracebacks or the one or more speculative error detections according to the probabilities.